Healthcare & Social Assistance in Rhode Island's Economy, part II

Here we can see an overview of the different industry groups within the healthcare and social assistance sector: both the share of jobs provided by each group (as indicated by the size of the bubbles) and its average wages (as indicated by the shading; darker blue indicates a higher average wage).

This visualization shows us which industry groups offer the most jobs AND the best wages. Immediately we see that general medical and surgical hospitals is the biggest sector and pays well, on average. Other hospital industry groups have a smaller presence, but also pay well. It's clear that jobs in office/outpatient care as well as medical labs also feature a high average wage. Finally we see that jobs providing services to children, families, and the sick or elderly living at home provide the lowest wages. Unfortunately these industry groups provide a significant number of Rhode Island jobs.

How do jobs in Rhode Island's Health Care sector compare to similar jobs in our region? Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, we compare private sector average wages for each subsector. This graph shows that our state's compensation patterns aren't much different from the regional norm. Our healthcare jobs pay somewhat less than Connecticut and Massachusetts, but our cost of living is also less.

However, healthcare jobs pay somewhat better in Rhode Island than in Maine or Vermont, despite similar or greater costs of living in those states.

Health Care jobs are projected to grow faster than many other occupations between 2012-22, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is certainly true in Rhode Island where healthcare is already one of the biggest employer in our state. Despite the low wages offered by many jobs in this sector, the national projections1 suggest that in-demand, high-paying healthcare careers will continue to become available even to those without a Bachelor's degree.

This chart groups healthcare occupations by the required education at the entry level, and shades them by projected growth. The length of the bars indicates the median pay. We can see that the vast majority of occupations requiring an Associate's degree or less are growing faster or much faster than average. Wages in some of these high-demand/moderate skill occupations (like dental hygienists and radiation therapists) are comparable to what one might expect with a Master's degree. or even a professional degree.